Aug 17 2012: I believe that pat gilbert has made a serious misinterpretation of what appears a very obvious meaning on the part of Aviva Visoli. But best demonstrated by examples as requested.
Example 1: Mother Teresa's objectives.
Example 2: Martin Luther King Jr.'s objectives.
Example 3: Albert Einstein's objectives.
Example 4: Jonas Salk's objectives.
etc., etc., etc.
Those not making this "Marxist" listing:
Example 1: Tiger Woods's objectives.
Example 2; Madonna's objectives.
Example 3: Kim Kardashian's objectives.
Example 4: Donald Trump's objectives.
etc., etc., etc.
Jul 22 2012: Mr. Prosser, I find your perspective refreshing and deep.
That the whole is greater than the sum of the parts is a truism of system mechanical, and natural. In it most extreme, we have the concept of the quantum computer, whose (Q)BITs form an entangled whole capable of exponentially greater computing speed.
When the competition of an N-Bit memory is translated it into the cooperation of a 2-to-the-power-of-N, N-BIT element engine of instantaneous computing power (even at the existing prototype level of N=7), it is a wonder to behold.
Imagine Humanity organized in a cooperative, mutually responsible manner -- competing for who can do the most for everyone rather than just for numero uno. Imagine this dog-eat-dog and pack-of-dogs eat everyone world transformed into a truly human society. Can we begin to grasp the problems that could be overcome, the universally beneficial accomplishment that could be achieved?
I don't want to just dream your dream Mr. Prosser, I want to see it happen!
May 13 2012: Defining altruism is indeed a very important point -- I would just like to offer a comment on that.
People tend to think its a matter of devoting one’s time and resources to charitable works towards individuals, or the reforming of society for the general good. But the problem here is that the motivation is essentially egoistic.
The action is generally to allay the psychological pain of conscience, or the pleasure and pain of inborn empathy; to gain a feeling of greater self-worth or outright pride; to gain social recognition/status, or to gain reward and avoid punishment in a religious sense.
There is also a minority of people who just want to give of themselves for no rhyme or reason. Unfortunately this isn’t altruism -- its mindless impulse, insanity.
If we follow the natural model of altruism, and translate it to the conscious human framework, the matter clarifies. It is in integration with the whole that others are understood to be part, even the greater part, of oneself. The state would be to take happiness in the pleasure of another, or even more so, the whole -- and suffer in their pain. [This should not be mistaken with empathy, where one actually feels pleasure or pain in their own person.]
The closest idea we generally have to this is in the family bond. It can also be understood as the ideal expressed in religion of loving one’s fellow as oneself, and the secular parallel of enlightened self-interest.
May 7 2012: I think that Caitlin Luview is making a critically important obervation here, and indeed the focus of the question should shift. I have family and friends with such problems as bipolar and diabetes. To just "drop pharmaceuticals" representst to them a sentence from life time lock up to death.
However, a caring world would not only have made safe decomposition and processing an equal priority without outfox-the-fox enough government scrutiny, but would concern itself with environmental impacts that might have played a role beyond natural genetics in the development of such mental and phyical diseases.
The key is mutual care, responsibility, and guarantee. If we inculcate that through education and social pressure, the rest would likely follow.
Mar 7 2012: Some 32 years ago, Prof. Stephan Berko of Brandeis University introduced his Quantum Mechanics course with the following question: “Why do we know that there is a law of conservation of energy (or more generally, ‘mass’ – combined matter and energy)?” After patiently listening to my class’s answers, he responded that they were all wrong. “We do not know logically that there is such a law, rather we perceive the same pattern repeatedly, so we assume such a law.” It was a seminal insight.
The “theory of everything” or TOE remains a myth even as the ever-growing plethora of multidimensional “string” models in physics vie for this holy grail. Even where predicting aspects of perceived reality beyond those upon which it was predicated, a TOE certainly doesn’t account for itself. It is claimed that the “ultimately” refined “true” TOE will be shown to require itself. A physical object turned in a complete circle will come back into itself, a cleverly constructed circular logic would do the same for a TOE. It would be worse than meaningless, however, as now that circular logic created would need explanation by the TOE. Further, the notion that translating perception into theorem creates any new information at all, much less complete knowledge, is plain wrong. [Even in pure mathematics! – see Gregory Chaitin’s “Omega and why maths has no TOEs,” at: http://plus.maths.org/issue37/features/omega/]
No theory could deal with “Everything” unless it contained it, and only Infinity itself can do this. Absolute Infinity, however, has no definition, no boundaries, no rules, and so no exclusions. There can be no laws of chance, no laws of causality, but therefore, certainly no TOE.
Our goal then must be to perceive with greater accuracy and ever improve model. The true possibility to the next step in this is the joining of Humanity as a whole, a single mind like natural communities in Nature.. The Internet and true mutual responsibility may be all that we need.
Jan 22 2012: I saw this film -- it indeed makes a powerful point that in a sense includes, but actually goes far beyond the present issue. In essence, blocking or inhibiting the Internet on a national or global scale may well be considered a crime against Humanity.
Jan 11 2012: Monte, I think that your point about the "gome jabbar" needle ring is very pointed indeed (triple pun intended - :) ). And indeed per Shakespeare, that is the question: "Whether t'is nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or..."
I was a bit of a Frank Herbert fan myself, and I think that we see still further in his thinking, that the road to being human starts wth the choice of life with its pain, or death with its appearance of carefree oblivion. However, the one who successfully completes it can end the true leader of humanity -- here, Herbert's Dune messiah, the "Muad'Dib".
I agree with you and Frank Herbert too, in that being intelligent apprehension of our emotions and following our desires only makes us clever beasties -- not humans. What makes us human is to strive to rise above the beast and rather than merely being a slave to the pull of lust and the push of pain, actively understand where we ae to evolve to and of our own free will, become a partner rather than mindless part in that path. One can't fight Nature, but one can willing join it.
We see where the world is going: technological leaps and globally limits on growth that bind the globe in evertightening interdependence between all people, and even the ecology/climate. And that direction is two-fold. One is a chaos of evergrowing problems in an evergrowing number of dimensions, per Einstein's dire warning that the human mind produces technologies whose problems are beyond it ken. The other is a communication/computational linking of all of Humanity -- in other words, we are being evolved by high tech lust into a megacolony -- a supermind -- that IS capable of lthriving in this new world.
The problem is our puzzle pieces are not being nicely fit together by Nature but are being shaken around to fit. Will ourselves to mutual concern and guarantee, and we will all fit smoothly. So lets will to do what those bacterial megacolonies do mindlessly --that's true human.
Jan 9 2012: Monte Delion's point above is both a very interesting and real possibility.
As I recall, the mathematician/physicist Roger Penrose of Oxford University, took very seriously the possibility of such quantum-interference interaction between the sensory system, thought, and perception of consciousness itself. It was some years after his original consideration of this already back around 1990, that an expert came in on the biolodical end, I believe, and even helped establish the possibility of microtubule bringing the small-size, and global distribution required to make such a possibility real. Of course, the matter remains shrouded in scientific debate.
Now whether this is true or not, consider the (also controversial) theory that the sympathetic feelings that one has are based upon a sympathetic neurons that make one sense the actions/pain of another as though they were our own. [Supposedly, the autistic spectrum demonstrates a diminishment of this, ergo their much diminished sense of body language queues.] If anything like this is true, then we see that what is normally taken fro altruism would be merely a wired feeling of pain or pleasure based on certain visual queues from another, or the memory thereof. The implication is that what is normally taken as altruism, may be merely another form of selfish taking of pleasure or avoidance of pain, not at all connected with the other person.
We might come to a very interesting conclusion here then:
1 - The well and woe of others may really represent a deep real interconnection with our own well and woe.
2 - Whether so or not, what is taken as altruism to others, may actually be a limited pleasure/pain mapping in ourselves of only the immediate sensory or conceptual perception of the actual needs.
Thus we may find that altruism is a vital nutrient for us, but our direct sense of it is only candy. One has a sense that, especially as the globe gets smaller, we desperately need to develop real mutual concern, love.
Dec 27 2011: Excellent points! We spend years teaching the math skills that could be taught as a model of approach in a few days as these will essentially done by computer and calculator anyway. In the meantime, the thinking/cooperative skills -- total integration -- necessary for true success in the new global world that has come upon us, are left to float.
The industrial age has been passing to the information age, and now to the global/integral age.
In the 13th century Leonardo of Pisa, "Fibonacci," widely introduced Italy and Europe to the Hindu-Arabic numeral system and its wonderful arithmetic. It freed them of the hopeless entanglement and debilitation of commerce and engineering under Roman numerals and abacus.
Who shall come forth for 21st century children so that they may have the tools to untangle the global systemic mess. That they may work as a single vast strategist and tactician with billions of eyes, where all individuals use their unique talents, creativity, and problem solving skills in mutual concern and guarantee that links into a whole truly greater than the sum of the parts. Who will teach them to map and implement the interactive/interdependent strategies of Nature, on the human level, to achieve a world never before known. Who will bring our children to adapt, evolve, survive and thrive -- to start that great new chapter of human history, to fly forth as the butterfly from the overspent, rapidly decaying cocoon?
TEDCred score: +8.90 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.
A reply on Conversation: How can we build a better educational system?
Example 1: Mother Teresa's objectives.
Example 2: Martin Luther King Jr.'s objectives.
Example 3: Albert Einstein's objectives.
Example 4: Jonas Salk's objectives.
etc., etc., etc.
Those not making this "Marxist" listing:
Example 1: Tiger Woods's objectives.
Example 2; Madonna's objectives.
Example 3: Kim Kardashian's objectives.
Example 4: Donald Trump's objectives.
etc., etc., etc.
A reply on Conversation: We need more cooperation than competition.
That the whole is greater than the sum of the parts is a truism of system mechanical, and natural. In it most extreme, we have the concept of the quantum computer, whose (Q)BITs form an entangled whole capable of exponentially greater computing speed.
When the competition of an N-Bit memory is translated it into the cooperation of a 2-to-the-power-of-N, N-BIT element engine of instantaneous computing power (even at the existing prototype level of N=7), it is a wonder to behold.
Imagine Humanity organized in a cooperative, mutually responsible manner -- competing for who can do the most for everyone rather than just for numero uno. Imagine this dog-eat-dog and pack-of-dogs eat everyone world transformed into a truly human society. Can we begin to grasp the problems that could be overcome, the universally beneficial accomplishment that could be achieved?
I don't want to just dream your dream Mr. Prosser, I want to see it happen!
A reply on Conversation: When we think we have no options, can we change our perception? Does having options make us happier?
People tend to think its a matter of devoting one’s time and resources to charitable works towards individuals, or the reforming of society for the general good. But the problem here is that the motivation is essentially egoistic.
The action is generally to allay the psychological pain of conscience, or the pleasure and pain of inborn empathy; to gain a feeling of greater self-worth or outright pride; to gain social recognition/status, or to gain reward and avoid punishment in a religious sense.
There is also a minority of people who just want to give of themselves for no rhyme or reason. Unfortunately this isn’t altruism -- its mindless impulse, insanity.
If we follow the natural model of altruism, and translate it to the conscious human framework, the matter clarifies. It is in integration with the whole that others are understood to be part, even the greater part, of oneself. The state would be to take happiness in the pleasure of another, or even more so, the whole -- and suffer in their pain. [This should not be mistaken with empathy, where one actually feels pleasure or pain in their own person.]
The closest idea we generally have to this is in the family bond. It can also be understood as the ideal expressed in religion of loving one’s fellow as oneself, and the secular parallel of enlightened self-interest.
A reply on Conversation: What is more important: Our drugs or our ecosystems?
However, a caring world would not only have made safe decomposition and processing an equal priority without outfox-the-fox enough government scrutiny, but would concern itself with environmental impacts that might have played a role beyond natural genetics in the development of such mental and phyical diseases.
The key is mutual care, responsibility, and guarantee. If we inculcate that through education and social pressure, the rest would likely follow.
A comment on Conversation: Will we ever truly be able to model nature?
The “theory of everything” or TOE remains a myth even as the ever-growing plethora of multidimensional “string” models in physics vie for this holy grail. Even where predicting aspects of perceived reality beyond those upon which it was predicated, a TOE certainly doesn’t account for itself. It is claimed that the “ultimately” refined “true” TOE will be shown to require itself. A physical object turned in a complete circle will come back into itself, a cleverly constructed circular logic would do the same for a TOE. It would be worse than meaningless, however, as now that circular logic created would need explanation by the TOE. Further, the notion that translating perception into theorem creates any new information at all, much less complete knowledge, is plain wrong. [Even in pure mathematics! – see Gregory Chaitin’s “Omega and why maths has no TOEs,” at: http://plus.maths.org/issue37/features/omega/]
No theory could deal with “Everything” unless it contained it, and only Infinity itself can do this. Absolute Infinity, however, has no definition, no boundaries, no rules, and so no exclusions. There can be no laws of chance, no laws of causality, but therefore, certainly no TOE.
Our goal then must be to perceive with greater accuracy and ever improve model. The true possibility to the next step in this is the joining of Humanity as a whole, a single mind like natural communities in Nature.. The Internet and true mutual responsibility may be all that we need.
A reply on Talk: Clay Shirky: Why SOPA is a bad idea
A reply on Conversation: Are we becoming less human?
I was a bit of a Frank Herbert fan myself, and I think that we see still further in his thinking, that the road to being human starts wth the choice of life with its pain, or death with its appearance of carefree oblivion. However, the one who successfully completes it can end the true leader of humanity -- here, Herbert's Dune messiah, the "Muad'Dib".
I agree with you and Frank Herbert too, in that being intelligent apprehension of our emotions and following our desires only makes us clever beasties -- not humans. What makes us human is to strive to rise above the beast and rather than merely being a slave to the pull of lust and the push of pain, actively understand where we ae to evolve to and of our own free will, become a partner rather than mindless part in that path. One can't fight Nature, but one can willing join it.
We see where the world is going: technological leaps and globally limits on growth that bind the globe in evertightening interdependence between all people, and even the ecology/climate. And that direction is two-fold. One is a chaos of evergrowing problems in an evergrowing number of dimensions, per Einstein's dire warning that the human mind produces technologies whose problems are beyond it ken. The other is a communication/computational linking of all of Humanity -- in other words, we are being evolved by high tech lust into a megacolony -- a supermind -- that IS capable of lthriving in this new world.
The problem is our puzzle pieces are not being nicely fit together by Nature but are being shaken around to fit. Will ourselves to mutual concern and guarantee, and we will all fit smoothly. So lets will to do what those bacterial megacolonies do mindlessly --that's true human.
A reply on Conversation: Is neural activity truly the basis for thoughts, feelings, and perceptions?
As I recall, the mathematician/physicist Roger Penrose of Oxford University, took very seriously the possibility of such quantum-interference interaction between the sensory system, thought, and perception of consciousness itself. It was some years after his original consideration of this already back around 1990, that an expert came in on the biolodical end, I believe, and even helped establish the possibility of microtubule bringing the small-size, and global distribution required to make such a possibility real. Of course, the matter remains shrouded in scientific debate.
Now whether this is true or not, consider the (also controversial) theory that the sympathetic feelings that one has are based upon a sympathetic neurons that make one sense the actions/pain of another as though they were our own. [Supposedly, the autistic spectrum demonstrates a diminishment of this, ergo their much diminished sense of body language queues.] If anything like this is true, then we see that what is normally taken fro altruism would be merely a wired feeling of pain or pleasure based on certain visual queues from another, or the memory thereof. The implication is that what is normally taken as altruism, may be merely another form of selfish taking of pleasure or avoidance of pain, not at all connected with the other person.
We might come to a very interesting conclusion here then:
1 - The well and woe of others may really represent a deep real interconnection with our own well and woe.
2 - Whether so or not, what is taken as altruism to others, may actually be a limited pleasure/pain mapping in ourselves of only the immediate sensory or conceptual perception of the actual needs.
Thus we may find that altruism is a vital nutrient for us, but our direct sense of it is only candy. One has a sense that, especially as the globe gets smaller, we desperately need to develop real mutual concern, love.
A reply on Conversation: In your opinion, what should the purpose of education be?
The industrial age has been passing to the information age, and now to the global/integral age.
In the 13th century Leonardo of Pisa, "Fibonacci," widely introduced Italy and Europe to the Hindu-Arabic numeral system and its wonderful arithmetic. It freed them of the hopeless entanglement and debilitation of commerce and engineering under Roman numerals and abacus.
Who shall come forth for 21st century children so that they may have the tools to untangle the global systemic mess. That they may work as a single vast strategist and tactician with billions of eyes, where all individuals use their unique talents, creativity, and problem solving skills in mutual concern and guarantee that links into a whole truly greater than the sum of the parts. Who will teach them to map and implement the interactive/interdependent strategies of Nature, on the human level, to achieve a world never before known. Who will bring our children to adapt, evolve, survive and thrive -- to start that great new chapter of human history, to fly forth as the butterfly from the overspent, rapidly decaying cocoon?